It has been my understanding that the Arabs are a Semitic people. I think the label of anti-Semitic is inaccurate in this regard. Anti-Jewish - perhaps, but anti-Semitic makes no sense.

Posted by My name is Dylan, Tuesday, 31 July 2007 9:33:34 AM

It is simply untrue that there was no antisemitism in the Islamic world, though it varied from country to country as it did in Europe. But its origins are irrelevant; it exists there now - read the daily press, the Hamas covenant, Ahmadinejad's pronouncements etc - and the only question that interests me is what Muslim nations and individuals going to do about it, blame the nasty colonialists or take some responsibility.

Posted by Eebee, Tuesday, 31 July 2007 11:14:06 AM

One only has to read the book "Blood Brothers", by Elias Chacour, a Palestinian Christian, to realise that so called Anti-Semitism is justified, particularly in Palestine where over one million Palestinians Arabs, both Christian and Muslim were displaced by the deceit of Zionists.

Posted by VK3AUU, Tuesday, 31 July 2007 11:46:41 AM

That's a real subtle point VK3AUU,about as sensible as saying we should kill Australian Muslims for the actions of their co-religionists in Darfur.

Posted by Eebee, Tuesday, 31 July 2007 1:04:53 PM

The best lies, even the most virulently unjust propaganda, always include a grain of truth.

Israel is indeed a recidivist war criminal. Its recurring bombardment and permanent blockade of Gaza, deliberate maiming of innocent targets by snipers, deliberate targeting of journalists and community leaders, the 7-metre concrete apartheid "fence" -- right up to today, it works to ensure that its occupation is a reign of terror.

Of course the crimes of Israel are a source of great resentment on the part of Palestinians, just as the crimes of the USA are a source of resentment amongst Native Americans, Latin Americans, Vietnamese, Iraqis and many others.

But Israel's crimes do not, under any circumstances, justify hatred of the Jewish race.

It must be remembered that anti-semitism preceded and *caused* Zionism. The racial and millennial language of Zionism grew from the same fertile Imperial Viennese cosmopolitan melting-pot that nurtured the idea of an Aryan master race, as well as the science of Boltzmann, Suess and Freud; the music of Mahler and Strauss.

Without a thousand years of virulent anti-semitism in Christendom, it would not have become a plank of Nazism. Without the Pale and the Shoah, European Jewry would not have emigrated en masse. Without Zionist millenialism, those Jews would have come instead to America, Australia and South Africa (even as it was, until the 1930s less than 1% of that Diaspora headed to Palestine).

Without the agitation of 20th-century anti-semitism in the Middle East, violent confrontation between Zionists and innocent Palestinians could have been averted. Without the paternalism of the British administration, Palestine might have remained a multi-ethnic colony rather than becoming the only modern State with a constitution founded on discrimination by religion (which, by the nature of the religion in question, becomes effectively discrimination by race).

So many might-have-beens. None of which justifies racial hatred. Even today, opportunities remain open for justice. Better to sieze them than to dwell on whose hatred is worthy.

Posted by xoddam, Tuesday, 31 July 2007 1:12:57 PM

Xoddam said “Israel … occupation is a reign of terror” Xoddam you are just another unpleasant apologist for the Palestinian Islamo-fascists. Israel has had to defend itself from invasion by its neighbours at least three times since 1945. It suffers from violence so random and devastating that it is a wonder they haven’t expelled all Palestinians from their country.

The Palestinians have until recently opted for peace through victory rather than through negotiation. Israel has long behaved as a nation which knows it must come to some agreement with the Palestinians. This is demonstrated by the tolerance of Yasser Arafats Fatah and the many Palestinians who live and work in Israel. The Israelis could have evicted both of these groups militarily if they wanted to.

Apartheid? The Afrikaners in South Africa didn’t want to associate with black Africans because they felt superior to them and intended to show it. The Israelis don’t want to mix with Palestinians because there is every chance that they might be carrying a bomb strapped to their body. I don’t know how you would react if you felt it wasn’t safe for your children to ride the bus to school, or eat at a restaurant, but I assume it wouldn’t be an invitation for the perpetrators to come and live next door. Or allow them to drive around your neighbourhood looking for the best target. Discrimination by religion is the hallmark of most modern Islamic states so Israel is hardly breaking ground new ground on this front.

But there is no way that Israel has a policy of targeting non combatants. Whilst innocents are certainly the victims of Israeli action, this is virtually always the unfortunate by product of an attempt to kill terrorist leaders who use their people as a shield behind which to hide. The Palestinians, on the other hand, deliberately attack innocent civilians for maximum horror. Until the Palestinians renounce terror and work toward a peaceful settlement with Israel, I cannot find fault with Israel’s attempts to defend itself